November 4, 2014
The Most Interesting Ball
Interesting Ball (NSFW) - A red ball bounces past a cafe and a couple folks’ houses and then goes to the beach. [more inside]
Dance, baby, dance
Top of the Heap
How many rats are there in New York? A new study reports the number may not be the previously estimated twice as many rats as people . Where did the wildly inflated numbers come from? Snopes has the scoop. Don't worry, you can still enjoy the Interactive NYC Rat Map.
An Art of Air and Fire: Brazil’s Renegade Balloonists
"Baloeiros came from modest roots, launched into an explosive phenomenon, and then were criminalized. It seems that for now, they remain in a state of suspension" – Photographs of construction and launches at Balão da Vez (worth translating for the interesting stories too). [via]
Piehole Should Be Quiet
little girl tells Christian preacher to shut up "Every year Salem is inundated with street preachers during out Halloween celebrations. They spend most every weekend during October telling us to 'Turn or Burn.' I've been recording their interactions with people for a couple of years now for a long running art project, and while this young guy was preaching, a little girl just ran up and started laying into him. I never even saw who her parents were or where she was from. She just sort of showed up and then ran off again."
This is my new favorite thing.
This is my new favorite thing.
Sci Fi Cello
What do you get when you cross a cello with a Zube Tube and let someone who knows what he's doing play it? You get the Yaybahar, built and played by Turkish musician Görkem Şen. [more inside]
tech punditry: stage-managed gobbledygook with an undercurrent of sexism
The Dads of Tech – by Astra Taylor and Joanne McNeil, The Baffler
"The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house," Audre Lorde famously said, but let Clay Shirky mansplain. It "always struck me as a strange observation — even the metaphor isn't true," the tech consultant and bestselling author said at the New Yorker Festival last autumn in a debate with the novelist Jonathan Franzen. "Get ahold of the master’s hammer," and you can dismantle anything. Just consider all the people "flipping on the 'I'm gay' light on Facebook" to signal their support for marriage equality — there, Shirky declared, is a prime example of the master’s tools put to good use.[more inside]
"Shirky invented the Internet and Franzen wants to shut it down," panel moderator Henry Finder mused with an air of sophisticated hyperbole. Finder said he was merely paraphrasing a festival attendee he'd overheard outside — and joked that for once in his New Yorker editing career, he didn't need fact-checkers to determine whether the story was true. He then announced with a wink that it was "maybe a little true." Heh.
these platform glitter jelly sandals were made for walking....
How the Internet Changed the World of Fashion: from seapunk and normcore to vaporwave and health goth.
The Power of Fashion
The "Women Fashion Power" Exhibit at the Design Museum in London has reignited the discussion regarding fashion as a symbol of power among women. [more inside]
Ugly Boy
Die Antwoord have just released a (NSFW) video for their most pop accessable song "Ugly Boy" which directly samples Ageispolis by Aphex Twin. [more inside]
ⓓⓘⓥⓔⓡⓢⓘⓣⓨ
2015: The Year of Emoji Diversity - The Unicode Consortium has released a technical report detailing a new method for handling the representation of multi-ethnic groups in emoji that may work its way into Unicode 8.0 [more inside]
the default parent
"Are you the default parent? If you have to think about it, you're not. You'd know. Trust me."
On Kindness
Cord Jefferson writes about the struggle to be kind, and the woman who taught him the value of that struggle. [more inside]
Carry That Weight
The amateurs will split $2,250 in prize money, plus two of them will qualify to compete at nationals, which take place in October at Circus Circus in Reno. The pros will split $14,000. They will lift tire barbells like the ones the amateurs are lifting right now, except heavier. They will also lift or press or carry 220-pound dumbbells, a 340-pound metal log, and an unwieldy 300-pound hunk of I-beam the contestants can’t quite figure out how to get their arms around. They will toss sand-filled beer kegs of increasing heft — 35 pounds at first, all the way up to 70 — up and over a high bar between goalposts adorned with the flags of Indiana and the United States. They will drag a 700-pound metal chain you could use to bind a kraken. The life of the seventh strongest man in the world.
A pro marijuana song
In honor of marijuana initiatives on the ballot in my states in the USA, I present Puff Puff Give. (SLYT)
Yo Voté
Only 39% of eligible voters turn out during mid-term elections, a trend that historically favors Republican candidates (ie. not voting also has an effect). The Washington Post has the numbers showing voter (or non-voter) behavior by age, race, education, gender.
Voca me cum benedictis
There was of course the famous(ly spurious, although informative for showing how orchestration works) scene in Amadeus where the ailing Mozart dictates the Confutatis maledictis to Salieri.
Well, here is a more recent example of teaching the Confutatis via call-and-response.
Something tells me Wolfie would approve.
Well, here is a more recent example of teaching the Confutatis via call-and-response.
Something tells me Wolfie would approve.
Writing People of Color
Previously Unreleased Poems by a Teenaged Tupac Shakur
The poems, written over a three year period starting when the rapper was 17, offer a glimpse of Tupac before many people knew him. With the hope of beginning to understand the significance of Tupac Shakur on today's modern world, we asked writer Jeff Weiss, who co-wrote 2Pac vs. Biggie: An Illustrated History of Rap's Greatest Battle, to pen an essay on why we care.
Diagnosis dolls: carved figures and anatomical manikins from the past
For centuries, artists have made statues and carvings of human figures for medical purposes, from the Chinese physician's dolls or medical dolls (Google news), used to help doctors work around taboos of giving physical exams to women, to the douningyo or meridian dolls (PDF), used to train people in the ways of acupuncture. But the carvings became quite intricate following De humani corporis fabrica (Wikipedia; translated and annotated online), resulting in miniature anatomical manikins, most often carved from ivory (source). [more inside]
Everything's coming up ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ
Each week, the ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ industry observes a sacred ritual: Together, but not quite in sync, dozens of websites embed and then post the longest segment from John Oliver's HBO show, Last Week Tonight. That John Oliver's weekly video(s) will go viral is, at this time, a given. Whether or not the posts that embed those videos will go viral is another matter altogether. Each time around there are winners, losers, and mere participants. Here's what happened this week: "The John Oliver Video Sweepstakes" [more inside]
We like to think that we understand our universe.
The Uncanny Power of Weird Fiction, by Jeff VanderMeer in The Atlantic.
The Wall fell only for some
So, what is the balance-sheet of transition? Only three or at most five or six countries could be said to be on the road to becoming a part of the rich and (relatively) stable capitalist world. Many are falling behind, and some are so far behind that they cannot aspire to go back to the point where they were when the Wall fell for several decades. Despite philosophers of “universal harmonies” such as Francis Fukuyama, Timothy Garton Ash, Vaclav Havel, Bernard Henry Lévy, and scores of international “economic advisors” to Boris Yeltsin, who all phantasized about democracy and prosperity, neither really arrived for most people in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The Wall fell only for some.On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall Branko Milanovic looks at how the transition to capitalism worked out for the ex-communist countries of the USSR and Eastern Europe.
The Art of Not Working at Work
At first, the ability to check email, read ESPN, or browse Zappos while on the job may feel like a luxury. But in time, many crave more meaningful—and more demanding—responsibilities.
Those not so Despicable Minions
After laboring as second bananas in Despicable Me 1 and 2, the Minions are finally getting their own movie.
The Cosmic Distance Ladder
How do we determine distances between the earth, sun, and moon, and from the sun to other planets, stars, and distant galaxies? We can't measure these directly, but indirect methods, combined with some basic high school math, can provide convincing and accurate results. A public lecture by Fields medalist Terry Tao (SLYT)
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